Doctoral Student Profiles

Junpei Xiao received a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Arizona State University with experience on utilizing microbes to produce renewable industrial grade bio-based products. He then received a Master of Science in Bioinformatics from Boston University with experience on scRNA-seq and scATAC-seq analysis. He is now pursuing his Ph.D. in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology under the mentorship of Scarlet Shell. His research focuses on investigating the mechanism of resistance for certain drugs of mycobacteria. Beyond the lab, Junpei enjoys fishing.

I am a PhD student in the Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Program. I am doing joint research under Professor Vidali and Professor Min on developing mathematical models for plant cell growth and deformation. Previously at Northeastern University, I have done research in protein active site predictions and had internships at Harvard Medical School and Seres Therapeutics in Cambridge.

I joined the PhD program of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology of WPI in 2019. I am working with Dr. Korkin focus on ligand binding computation, including the alternative splicing affect and the human population mutations. Before I came into WPI, I earned my Bachelor degree from Zhejiang University in Biomedical Sciences, studying the cancer genetics in stomach and colon cancer. I obtained my M.S. degree from Duke University of Biomedical Engineering, I did research in gut microbiome and gene expression profile of cancer metastasis.

Toni worked at Brigham and Women's hospital in as a research associate in a respiratory epigenetics lab for 2 years before joining the Broad Institute in Cambridge, MA. There, she worked at the Genomics Platform as a technology development associate developing hybrid selection based sequencing methods and molecular barcoding strategies. She then moved to a research lab at the Broad, where she studied evolution in yeast as well as melanoma. During this time, she received her master's in biotechnology from Harvard University Extension School. She joined Professor Reeta Rao's lab as a full time ...

Matt is originally from Groton, Massachusetts and completed his B.S. in Biology at St. Lawrence University in 2014. He joined the Weathers Lab at WPI in the summer of 2014 to begin his PhD. Matt's research focuses on the antimalarial drug artemisinin produced by the ancient Chinese herb Artemisia annua. He is seeking to determine how bioavailability of the drug differs when it is orally delivered as pure drug vs. dried powdered leaves of A. annua.

Diego’s fascination with understanding how things work, alongside a passion for biological sciences, led him to study biotechnological engineering. He then came to WPI with a Fulbright scholarship to pursue a Masters with Prof. Rao and a Ph.D. with Prof. Shell. Diego was intrigued to find that after over a hundred years of research on TB, there are many secrets hidden in the genome of this bacterium that confer a remarkable ability to survive stress conditions. He is focused on understanding the regulation of mRNA stability as an adaptive response to environmental changes. In addition to doing ...

Josh is originally from Peabody, Massachusetts. He graduated with his bachelor’s degree from Case Western Reserve University in 2011 and his master’s degree from Tufts University in 2014, both in biomedical engineering. He joined the WPI Myocardial Regeneration Lab in the summer of 2014 for his PhD. Josh’s research focuses on adapting decellularization techniques to plants in order to create new, sustainable, and perfusable scaffolds for different tissue engineering applications.

I graduated from Cornell University with a B.S. in Biological Engineering and an M.Eng. in Biomedical Engineering. My research interests include cell migration, cellular signaling, and the biomechanics that link them together. I currently look at how mechanical stretching of cells changes their traction forces, as well as how the cells change their behavior when interacting with the substrate that they are adhered to.

Katrina is originally from Chugiak, Alaska and graduated from Washington State University in 2012 with a degree in bioengineering and began at WPI in the Fall of 2012. Her work seeks to answer how the efficient delivery, using fibrin microthreads, of human mesenchymal stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cell derived cardiomyocytes (iPS-CM) affect cardiac function post myocardial infarction.

I am a PhD student in the BME Department in Marsha Rolle's lab. My primary interest is in vascular tissue engineering. Our lab has a unique system for fabricating scaffold-free engineered blood vessels made entirely from human cells. For my project, I am using this system to create a model for intimal hyperplasia, which is characterized by the localized overgrowth of cells in a vessel, and can cause vessel occlusion. We aim to use our model to screen potential therapies for intimal hyperplasia.